Lunch Counter Where North Carolina A&T State University Students Began the Sit-In Movement Placed in New Display at the Smithsonian Institution

An eight-foot section of the lunch counter where in 1960 students from North Carolina A&T State University staged a sit-in at the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina, is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The 1960 protest in Greensboro set off a wave of similar sit-ins across the South. The Greensboro protest was successful. By July, Woolworth’s agreed to desegregate its lunch counters.

Another section of the lunch counter is being reserved for display at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum located in the old Woolworth’s building in Greensboro. The museum, first proposed in 1993, has yet to open.

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